Editor's Note

The Charge

Everyone's favorite neighbor is back!

Opening Statement

You'd be forgiven for not expecting much from The Cleveland Show: The
Complete Season One. Spinoffs are hardly a sign of creative originality and
a spinoff from Family Guy, a show that
too often settles for cheap shots and gross-out humor, sounds especially dire.
Surprisingly, however, The Cleveland Show is actually an enjoyable
diversion. It's hardly groundbreaking or extraordinary, but the show tones down
many of Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane's worst excesses and relies
instead on far more characterization than his other shows. The result is a show
that even the most ardent MacFarlane bashers might enjoy.

Facts of the Case

Having left Quahog after a humiliating divorce, Cleveland Brown (Mike Henry)
and his nerdy, overweight 14-year-old son Cleveland Jr. (Kevin Michael
Richardson, The Penguins of Madagascar) move to Cleveland's hometown of
Stoolbend, Virginia. There, Cleveland reconnects with his divorced high school
crush Donna Tubbs (Sanaa Lathan, Love and
Basketball) and her two children, sassy teenage daughter Roberta (Nia Long,
Friday), and swaggering infant Rallo (Henry). Here are the first
twenty-one episodes compiled on four discs:

• "Field of Streams" Cleveland attempts to
recreate his past glories by coaching his high school baseball team, but is
disappointed that Cleveland Jr. is neither good at nor interested in sports.

• "Love Rollercoaster" A substitute teacher (Jane
Lynch, Glee) pushes Roberta to disguise herself in a fat suit to learn
about shallowness, but Roberta regrets it when Cleveland Jr. ends up falling in
love with her.

• "Our Gang" Cleveland's plan to form an
afterschool club with the high school's leading troublemakers ends up
disastrously when they turn his club into a drug-dealing gang instead.

Disc Three • "Buried Pleasure"
Cleveland sets up Holt with one of his coworkers (Stacy "Fergie"
Ferguson, Nine) but discovers that she's
violently abusive.

• "The Curious Case of Jr. Working at the Stool"
Cleveland gets Cleveland Jr. a job working for his favorite bartender Gus (David
Lynch) but regrets it when Cleveland Jr. turns the bar into a nightclub that's
too hip for Cleveland himself.

• "Once Upon a Tyne in New York" Cleveland
attempts to take Donna on a honeymoon in New York City but ends up getting into
all sorts of misadventures with his friends instead.

• "The Brown Knight" Cleveland thinks Donna may
be too bossy and demanding, but reconsiders when she saves his life during a
mugging.

• "Gone with the Wind" Cleveland and Donna sign
up for a karaoke contest but are interrupted when Cleveland's ex-wife Loretta
dies.

Disc Four • "Brotherly Love"
Cleveland Jr. falls in love with Chanel (Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button),
one of his high school's most popular students, but ends up in a rivalry with
her boyfriend, Kenny West (Kanye West).

• "Brown History Month" Cleveland and Lester get
into a racially motivated brawl and are forced by a judge to build a float
together for Stoolbend's Unity Parade.

• "You're the Best Man, Cleveland Brown" When
Cleveland's parents decide to remarry at his house, Cleveland is forced to
confront his father Freight Train (Craig Robinson, Hot Tub Time Machine) about the
damage he's done to the family.

The Evidence

Of the three Seth MacFarlane shows Fox airs on Sunday nights, The
Cleveland Show stands out as the one with the most heart. That's actually by
design. In several places on this DVD, creator/producer/actor Henry and
creator/producer Richard Appel (The
Simpsons) explain how, from the beginning, they envisioned The Cleveland
Show as relying far more on characterization and emotional depth than any of
the other MacFarlane shows. That may sound like an ill-conceived idea—do
Family Guy fans really want a show with heart? As it turns out,
it's precisely that idea that makes The Cleveland Show a more
entertaining experience than any other MacFarlane show, especially if you've
never warmed to his previous work.

The decision to spin off Cleveland turns out to be inspired. He's a likable
protagonist with a rich background to be mined for humor. He can be willfully
obtuse—witness his stubborn refusal to tell the truth about what he did to
the family dog in "Da Doggone Daddy-Daughter Dinner Dance." He can be
a hypocrite, as when he embraces sexist double standards in "Cleveland
Jr.'s Cherry Bomb." He can even be selfish, such as how he decides to
punish Cleveland Jr. for being bad at baseball in "Field of Streams."
Nonetheless, despite his flaws, he remains, at heart, a good man who really only
wants what's best for Donna and his family. Unlike the increasingly detestable
Peter Griffin on Family Guy, or the increasingly unhinged Stan Smith on
American Dad!, you actually root for
Cleveland to succeed, making him an ideal central character for a series (which
is certainly more than can be said for, say, Family Guy's Quagmire).

As good as Cleveland is, however, the real emotional heart of the show is
Cleveland Jr. When Cleveland exclaims in one episode that he's not sure if
Cleveland Jr. is really stupid or really smart, he's pointing out just how
complex and endearing the character is. Cleveland Jr. may be a fat nerd who
sings odes to his warm white socks and still plays with stuffed animals at 14,
but that certainly doesn't mean he's a pushover. In episodes like
"Cleveland Jr.'s Cherry Bomb" and "The Curious Case of Jr.
Working at the Stool," Cleveland Jr. demonstrates an admirable courage;
when he's pushed, he isn't afraid to stand up for himself. It's the episode
"Brotherly Love," however, that stands out as the best of the season,
precisely because it shows Cleveland Jr. in all his complexity: he's sweet, shy,
and naive at the beginning but is revealed to be brave, clever, and a phenomenal
rapper at the end. Much of the credit for Cleveland Jr.'s success comes from
Richardson's vocal performance; he hits all the right notes in conveying the
character's many sides. The show's writers, however, also deserve credit for
working hard to make Cleveland Jr. a multilayered character instead of just
settling to make him the butt of "fat loser" jokes, as is the case
with Family Guy's Chris Griffin.

The other characters are also well-defined. Donna is more than just a sassy
black wife—Lathan's performance makes her a quirky, intriguing character
in her own right. Her best episodes—"Ladies' Night" and
"Gone With the Wind"—show her to be just as well-intentioned but
flawed as Cleveland himself, making her a perfect match for him. As for Roberta,
the character caused a bit of a storm when Long was fired by the network after
thirteen episodes and replaced with Reagan Gomez-Preston (The Parent
Hood). It's hard to tell the difference unless you listen closely—in
either case, the performance and the writing make the character hilarious and
likable, especially in her showcase episode "Love Rollercoaster."
Rallo is in some ways, the weakest link—he begins the series as something
of a cliché (the exceptionally precocious toddler) but gets better as the
season progresses and the writers remember that he's still a five-year-old who,
for all his cocksure bluster, still likes piggyback rides and eating paste. By
the last episode, when one character refers to Rallo as "Black
Stewie," the joke is less a stinging piece of ironic self-criticism and
more of a swipe at anyone who would make such a claim, since Rallo has become a
distinct character all his own. It's a sign of how well-developed the characters
are.

As for the technical presentation, it's a bit mixed. First, Fox deserves
enormous credit for releasing the entire first season in one collection, rather
than parceling the episodes out in randomly broken-off chunks as they do with
Family Guy and American Dad!. Fox also deserves credit for
selecting The Cleveland Show as the first of the MacFarlane family of
shows shot and broadcast in anamorphic widescreen. The visual transfer looks
pristine and does justice to the animation. The 5.1 surround mix, on the other
hand, isn't great. The surrounds are used to full effect but the dialogue is way
too soft. For an animated sitcom, that's a real drawback. Viewers should note,
though, that these episodes are uncensored, so they should expect some
profanities and saltier language than they got when the episodes originally
aired.

Where the set excels is in extras. More than half the episodes come with
commentary tracks with producers, writers, and actors and these are generally
worth listening to. Every episode also comes with a healthy smattering of
deleted scenes that are sometimes even more amusing than what was left in. Disc
four includes "Meet Cleveland" (24:35), an extensive featurette that
chronicles how the series was created and how it's written and animated. It
doesn't address the Roberta controversy but is otherwise fairly thorough. The
other great extra is "The Brotherly Love Table Read" (45:10). It's a
filmed table read for the episode that's a must, not only because West and
Henson are there to read their parts but also because the original script
contains several scenes and jokes that were left off the finished episode. The
disc is rounded out with the video for "Get Your Hump On" (2:51), a
cheerfully smutty Christmas duet Cleveland recorded with the members of Earth,
Wind, & Fire that comes with its own "making of" featurette
(5:28). Several episodes also have alternate audio tracks that contain the
original censored TV edits.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

The show trims out many of the more tiresome excesses associated with
MacFarlane's humor. It, unfortunately, doesn't trim them all out.
Consider that the exact same joke about Meg Ryan's botched plastic surgery is
made in two separate episodes. Also consider how many shots of Cleveland and
other characters vomiting endlessly are included (answer: at least several per
episode). The series relies less on gross-out gags and random pop-culture
cutaways as it goes on, but it would be nice if the producers realize that they
don't need to indulge these tendencies. It's much funnier when they rely on
sharp characterizations and clever dialogue than tired clichés.

Closing Statement

The Cleveland Show doesn't try to push the envelope as aggressively as
Family Guy does. It doesn't try to make forceful political statements as
American Dad! does, either. All it does is try to be funny and touching,
and it actually succeeds in those modest goals, which, ironically makes a much
more enjoyable show than the other two. If anything, this is the Seth MacFarlane
show for people who don't like Seth MacFarlane, precisely because it (mostly)
pares down his weakest aspects and replaces them with heart and
characterization, the two qualities his work has sorely lacked before. At the
same time, the series retains enough edge to not come off as treacly or
sentimental. If you've never warmed up to his work before, give The Cleveland
Show a try—you might be surprised at just how amusing and sweet it
really is.

The Verdict

Surprisingly not guilty. Who woulda thunk it?

Give us your feedback!

Did we give The Cleveland Show: The Complete Season One a fair trial? yes / no

What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.